A Tibetan Buddhist chorten on the trail to Mount Everest. The world's highest peak is visible in the upper left hand corner of the photo.

John Flinn

A porter carrying gear for trekkers on the trail to Mount Everest. A standard porter load is 65 pounds, typically carried via a strap around the porter's forehead.

John Flinn

A chorten echoes the stunning shape of Ama Dablam, considered by many to be the most beautiful peak in the Himalayas.

John Flinn

NEPAL — I blame it all on plate tectonics. Like a toe scrunching up a rug, the Indian subcontinent has been insistently nudging the Asian mainland, and as a result the peaks and valleys around Mount Everest are now 4.2 inches higher, by one estimate, than when I was here 22 years ago.

I’m feeling the extra altitude with every step. Boy, am I feeling it.

That’s got to be the explanation for all this gasping and groaning, hasn’t it? Certainly it couldn’t be that I’m now 56 years old, with creaky knees and a navel that has, coincidentally, grown 4.2 inches farther from my spine than on my last visit.

But if the trail seems steeper and the air more oxygen-starved at this age, almost everything else about the trek to Everest Base Camp is easier now. Easier to arrange. More comfortable. Safer. Cheaper, too.

What this means is that this iconic, bucket-list adventure is well within reach of the discount-at-Denny’s crowd.

Nurbu, who is in his late 20s, has been to the summit of Everest three times. He speaks seven languages, including Korean, passably well. He is an uncanny weather forecaster (“Sherpa Doppler,” Scott called it), a demon card player and a very competent travel agent, which ultimately would prove crucial.

On the trail, Nurbu shooed away yaks that got too close to us, gave expert back rubs and was ready with a can of foot-deodorant spray when we had to take off our boots to enter a Tibetan Buddhist monastery.

In short, he was a Himalayan Jeeves to our Patagonia-clad Bertie Woosters.

Nurbu’s teenage cousin, Lobsang, schlepped our duffels, which together weighed about 65 pounds, eschewing shoulder straps in favor of a single strap across his forehead. Even so, he usually beat us to that evening’s lodge by hours.

Twenty years ago, trekking to Everest usually meant camping. These days hardly anyone sleeps in a tent. Enterprising Sherpas have built a network of lodges almost to the foot of the world’s highest mountain, and at the end of a long day they make all the difference to an older hiker.

Lodging options

Except for a smattering of high-end properties, the lodges are pretty much the same: a warm, convivial common room for dining and hanging out, often with lacquered wood, colorful Tibetan pillows and a central stove burning dried yak dung.

The rooms are bare monk cells with thin plywood walls, two beds, a single light bulb, and just enough room to stow your duffel.

Down the hall is the bathroom, usually with a choice of a squatter or a Western-style flush toilet. Often there’s a hot shower available for a price that, like everything here, rises with the altitude.

One of the underappreciated benefits of Himalayan hiking is weight loss. Your appetite tends to vanish up high. We nibbled only as much as we needed to fuel the next stage of walking. I had plenty of energy, and day by day could feel my clothes getting looser. It was like going to fat camp on the rooftop of the world.

But as I slogged up the interminable terminal moraine of the Khumbu Glacier at 16,000 feet, 15 minutes behind Scott, one thing became clear about trekking at this age: Training is essential. For a year before the trip, Scott had been setting his alarm for 4:45 a.m. and going to a spinning class, and it clearly paid off. I hadn’t taken my conditioning nearly as seriously. I was able to do the hike, but I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as I would have had I been fitter.

At least I was doing better than several trekkers we met who were suffering from severe and potentially fatal cases of altitude sickness. These days, though, ubiquitous rescue helicopters can whisk stricken hikers back to Kathmandu in an hour. It makes trekking in the Khumbu far safer, no doubt, but the constant clattering overhead was annoying.

We were running short on time and energy, so we skipped Base Camp (which is deserted in mid-November and doesn’t even have a view of the peak) in favor of an ascent of Kala Pattar, an 18,200-foot-high hill across the valley. It’s the high point of the journey, literally and figuratively — the viewpoint where all the intervening ridges fall away and Everest finally reveals itself in full.

Weather issues

One thing hasn’t changed much about the trek: Weather delays can still strand trekkers for days (or more) as they try to get a flight out of Lukla. There’s no organized system for rebooking: Once flights start getting canceled, it’s every trekker for himself.

We were a couple of days’ walk from the airstrip when Nurbu got an inkling the weather was about to turn for the worse, so he marched us down the mountain at double speed. He got us onto one of the last flights out before the storm shut everything down.

It wasn’t until I got back to the hotel in Kathmandu and donned my city clothes for the first time in two weeks that I discovered one of the best souvenirs of the trek: Everest may be inching ever higher into the sky, but my navel was now markedly closer to my spine.

John Flinn is a freelance writer in Pacifica, Calif.

When you go

There are two hiking seasons: pre-monsoon (March and April), and post-monsoon
(October and November). In the fall, temperatures are lower, but the peaks are
less obscured by clouds. These days the monsoon is lingering longer due to
climate change, so trekkers are pushing deeper into November.

Sherpa outfitters

Google “Everest Base Camp trek” and you’ll have your choice of dozens of
outfitters. We went with Kathmandu-based Adventure Magic Treks
(adventurehikenepal.com).
We paid $1,050 apiece, which covered meals and lodging on the 12-day trek, a
Sherpa guide and porter, flights to and from Lukla, all taxes and fees, sleeping
bag and down parka rental, two nights’ hotel in Kathmandu, airport transfers and
a city tour. Except for a mistake in booking our initial flight to Lukla too
late in the day, which put us slightly behind the eight ball, we felt we got as
good, or better, service than trekkers who paid far more than we did.

Tips for older trekkers

Training: Treat it seriously, even if you do a fair amount
of hiking back home. Focus both on your cardiovascular conditioning and your
quad muscles.

Trekking poles: An absolute godsend for those with gimpy
knees and rather useful for everyone else on uneven, rocky terrain. If you don’t
own a pair, you can buy or rent them cheaply in Kathmandu.

Helicopter rescues: Make sure your health insurance covers
these, which cost about $7,000. If it doesn’t, separate policies are available
from online travel insurance agencies for about $100.

Medicines: Talk to your doctor about Diamox, a prescription
drug that can help with acclimatizing to the altitude.

Acclimatization days: Everest treks typically schedule two
layover days to help you adjust to the extraordinary altitude: one in Namche
Bazaar, at 11,500 feet, and one at either Dingboche or Pheriche (14,300 feet).
These are very important. Don’t skip them. In fact, consider scheduling an extra
one.